Help Me Find Roses

If you are not familiar with this website you need to be. As per above they also are a resource for information on clematis and peonies, but since this a rose column I’m going to focus on what they offer regarding roses.

For starters this should knock your socks off. Their website currently catalogues over 41,000 roses and has more than 130,000 photographs of same roses. Toss in thousands of Rose nurseries, public and private gardens, Rose societies, authors, breeders, hybridizers and publications from all over the world and you have simply the greatest rose resource I know of and have ever seen.

In terms of buying roses here is just one way it can work for you. Say you are looking for a specific rose and don’t know where to purchase it and/or would like some more information. Simply click on “Search/Lookup” in the left hand column and a box comes up where you can type part or all of the name of the rose. Click on search and up comes either the rose or the ones that are closest to what you are looking for. Then click on the one you want.

You are first taken to a “description” page with photos of the rose, eventual size, is (or isn’t it) disease resistant, hardiness zone information and a whole host of other things you might want to know.

Then along the top of this “description” page are tabs. Click on them to see more photos, awards, and references in published material. But three of these tabs are particularly useful.

“Member Ratings”. This is exactly what it sounds like. Other gardeners are continually rating the rose on characteristics such as bloom color, boom frequency, fragrance, vigor, cold hardiness, disease resistance, shade tolerance and the list goes on. This gives you tremendous insight into what other gardeners feel about this rose when grown in their own garden – much like you will grow it in yours.

“Member Comments”. This area gives members the chance to expand on their ratings with comments on how well, or poorly, the rose does in their area. And here is one the best parts; click on the members name and you can see what area and what hardiness zone they live in! This means you can possibly find comments on the rose from people growing it under conditions similar to yours. What can be better than that!

“Buy From”. This is where Help Me Find really gets powerful. Rose nurseries from around the world regularly upload their rose availability list to Help Me Find. So under this tab are listed rose nurseries currently offering this rose for sale anywhere in the world. And then there are links to many of their websites plus information on how to get in touch with them to order. When I ran my former rose nursery I always made sure this list was up to date and I know almost all rose nurseries do the same.

There are more areas of Help Me Find I know you’ll find interesting and I’m going to talk about them in future posts, but before I close this one there is something you need to know and something I want you to think about doing.

First know this. Help Me Find accepts no advertising. They want this to be commercial free and unbiased. Therefore they help offset the cost of the site via donations and/or people joining for a year via their premium membership. A premium membership that costs only $24 a year and opens up whole other areas of the site. Heck, that’s less than a magazine subscription! Click on “Donations” towards the top of the left hand column for more information.

So please check the site out and have a blast. But also take a moment to donate and/or join. This is an amazing resource for lovers of gardening but without our support….